Gardasil and boys | Imamother

amother

Mon, Feb 28 2022, 10:35 am

I found some old threads on gardasil, but they were mostly about pros and cons in girls.

Anyone have any actual research about giving it to a boy?

I'm assuming that both the benefits and risks are much lower? Am I right?

(Please, no general anti-vax sentiments. I give most vaccines, but I'm just questioning whether the benefit/risk assessment of gardasil would be different in our communities.)

shabbatiscoming

Mon, Feb 28 2022, 10:42 am

hpv can happen in our community just like in any other, so if your reasoning is because frum boys or girls "dont act that way" (and Im not saying you are saying that, just pointing that out) then that is not a reason to not give it.
Things happen that are beyond our control.
I think it is always better to be safe rather than sorry.
(I think this vaccine is an important one, for boys and girls)

amother

Mon, Feb 28 2022, 10:59 am

I realize that it can happen in our community. However, our kids are at a lower risk than kids in the rest of the world. Not a non-existent risk, but lower.

I know there are people who have suffered bad effects from this vaccine. Low numbers, yes. Which is why most doctors outside of our community will encourage it. After all, say that (I'm making up numbers here, and keeping them round) 1% of kids outside of our communities will have a bad reaction to the vaccine, but 10% of kids will get HPV that would be prevented by the vaccine. A good risk-benefit analysis would result in doctors saying that kids should get the vaccine.

But let's say that in our community there's only a .5% chance of a kid getting HPV that would have been prevented by the vaccine. But they still have a 1% chance of having a bad reaction. The risk benefit analysis would be different, and our kids would not be recommended to get the vaccine. (And obviously it would depend on the severity of the side effects vs. the severity of the HPV.)

I wish, really wish that there would be data on such a thing, and I realize that all of the data may not exist. I guess I'm asking if anyone has any data at all that could help a parent trying to make this decision. It would be imperfect data, but probably better than going based on data that's skewed for people who are not in our community.

amother

Mon, Feb 28 2022, 11:02 am

Also, my understanding is that in this case, boys are much less likely to suffer major problems from HPV than girls anyway, so the benefits are much lower. Again, that doesn't mean that they can't suffer any problems, just that the numbers are lower. Is there research about the number of boys who have had side effects? I'm only aware of anecdotal info about girls, not boys, but my impression is that boys haven't been getting it for so long?

amother

Geranium

Mon, Feb 28 2022, 11:03 am

Your problem is that the data of adverse effects is skewed as well. Take a look at the opening post in this thread to see one blatant example of this:
https://www.imamother.com/foru.....72561

There's no telling how much more shtick is done that we don't know about to get the numbers right.